Intel wants 32-core processors in 2010

Intel plans to offer 32nm processors for servers with up to 32 cores in 2010. These chips will be 15x faster than today's 2GHz Xeon 5100.

The processor code-named Gulftown will have “eight processing nodes” with four cores on each one, according to TG Daily web-site, which may mean that the chip will consist of several physical dice. Every die will sport four processing engines, 3MB unified level-three cache, while every core will have 512KB L2 cache. The dice will be connected to each other using “a ring architecture” interconnect technology.

Intel already reportedly has project named Keifer, which is focused around many-core processors. Keifer is generally aimed at server market and will primarily compete against Sun’s Niagara processors, which micro-architecture is used in the company’s UltraSparc T1 chips. So far Intel competed against ultra high-end server processors from Sun and IBM using its Itanium lineup of microprocessors. Currently it is unclear whether the Gulftown is based on the IA64 architecture, or still is an x86 microprocessor, however, on the slide published by TG Daily Intel’s Xeon 5100 (Woodcrest) chips are compared with the Gulftown.